Truthout
Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders ran as a Democratic candidate for president of the United States in 2015 and 2016. He served as mayor of Burlington, Vermont’s largest city, for eight years before defeating an incumbent Republican to be the sole congressperson for the state in the US House of Representatives in 1991. He was elected to the Senate in 2007 and is now in his second term, making him the longest-serving independent in the history of the Congress, officially identifying himself as a socialist who caucuses with the Democrats. He lives in Burlington, Vermont, with his wife, Jane, and has four children and seven grandchildren.